The Counterfeit Madam (4 page)

‘Sit down and behave, John,’ she ordered him. ‘Eckie, what are ye about? It’s mine, I tell ye, Thomas and me signed the papers. They’re there, David, under the other.’

‘Aye. indeed. Here are two sets of titles to the land,’ Canon Cunningham said, looking disapprovingly from one document to the other, ‘with quite different names on them, conveyed in different hands, and at dates four year apart. This is highly irregular.’

‘Thomas should never have alienated the land,’ said Maister Livingstone firmly, sitting back. ‘It’s a part of the heritable portion, held from the Earl of Lennox and his forebears these fifty year. It went to my faither and now to Archie. Thomas never had a say in it.’

‘You said you’d already—’ Sempill began, glaring at Dame Isabella. Lowrie had quietly assisted Lady Magdalen to set his backstool on its legs; now she thanked him with a smile, put a hand on her husband’s wrist and drew him back to sit again.

‘We need to look at this again, that much is clear,’ she said. ‘Canon Cunningham, I’m right sorry that we’ve taken up your time wi such a guddle. We’ll away now and—’

‘We’ll do nothing of the sort!’ Dame Isabella’s stick thumped again. ‘I tell ye it’s mine, Eckie, and I’ll hear no different! As for you, you great fool,’ she added, baring her large white teeth at Sempill, ‘we’ll need to sort out which of Maidie’s properties it is you’ve been neglecting.’

‘At the very least, Isabella,’ said Canon Cunningham, ‘your possession is questionable and the matter must be replait till it can be studied carefully. No, your good-daughter is right, we can make no decision the day.’

‘Can you look into it, sir?’ asked Lady Magdalen.

‘There’s no need of looking into it!’ declared the old woman.

‘I’d be grateful,’ began Maister Livingstone.

Canon Cunningham shook his head.

‘I haveny the time,’ he said. ‘I’ve a caseload this week would try a team of oxen. This was the only—’ His voice trailed off as he looked at Gil, one eyebrow raised.

‘But what about the other matter?’ demanded Sempill.

‘I’ll take it on,’ Gil said to his uncle, with resignation. ‘If you think it proper, sir. But it will take me longer than the two days I promised you,’ he added, turning to Dame Isabella. ‘I’ll need to talk to a few folk, and I have work o my own to see to.’

‘You’re all in a league against me!’ she declared, thumping the stick again. ‘I’m an old woman, and I—’ She broke off, clutching at her massive chest. One of the waiting-women exclaimed and hurried forward to bend over her anxiously, patting the plump red cheeks, then pulling at her own skirts to reach her purse.

‘Oh, madam! Oh, where have I put your drops? Forveleth, do you have them?’ She tugged at the purse-strings, rummaged in the laden depths without result. The other woman dragged her dark gaze from Maistre Pierre and came forward quietly, producing a tiny flask which Annot unstopped and waved under her stricken mistress’s nose. ‘There, now, no need to go upsetting yourself.’

‘It aye upsets me,’ croaked Dame Isabella, with less than her usual force, ‘when folk crosses me. Don’t let them cross me, Annot.’

‘How your woman’s to prevent it,’ said Sempill angrily, ‘is more than I can see. You’ve crossed the rest of us the day, madam, and I’ll see you—’

‘John.’

‘And I want a word wi you, Sempill,’ added Dame Isabella, suddenly regaining vigour. ‘There’s a matter needs discussion. You’ll attend me this afternoon, or I’ll ken the reason.’

Canon Cunningham glanced over his shoulder at the March sunshine.

‘I must away,’ he said, without visible regret. ‘Richie will have two sets of witnesses and their men of law waiting for me. I’ll leave it in your hands then, Gilbert.’

‘What is your kinsman about, making such an offer?’ asked Maistre Pierre, and hitched the collar of his big cloak higher. ‘Confound this wind. It would bite through plate mail.’

‘I’ve no notion,’ admitted Philip Sempill, closing the gate of his town house behind them. ‘If John was acting alone I’d assume he was up to no great good, but Maidie Boyd is a different matter. She’ll deal honestly.’

‘If I hadn’t recognized the house, she would never have pointed it out to me,’ Gil observed.

‘
Caveat emptor
,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘She is not obliged to do so, after all.’

‘How did John come to wed her? Was it you promoted the match, Philip?’ Gil asked, setting off down Rottenrow towards the Wyndhead.

‘It was,’ the other man agreed, falling into step beside him.

Gil turned to catch his eye.

‘So that was your revenge,’ he said, grinning. ‘And a good one, too.’

‘Revenge?’ Philip repeated, his expression innocent. ‘I proposed a match I thought would suit my kinsman, is all.’

‘But why the whorehouse?’ persisted Maistre Pierre. ‘I should have thought, if it brings in so good a rent, they would sooner hold onto it.’

‘I think Maidie’s embarrassed by it,’ said Philip.

‘I’m flattered,’ said Gil obliquely.

They made their way down the slope of Rottenrow and into the busy Drygate, walking fast in the chill wind. Here the sound of hammers, of shuttle and loom, of wood and metal tools, was all round them. Glass-workers, wax-pourers, metalworkers of many kinds, embroiderers and makers of images, occupied the smaller buildings on the back-lands, practising all the amazing variety of trades which supported the life of a cathedral church. Further down the Drygate itself, past the narrow wynd which led to the tennis-court, a row of shops such as those of the burgh stationer and Forrest the apothecary gave way to houses of stone and then of wood. There were fewer passers-by, and the slope levelled out. Gil stopped beside a gable-end of wattle and daub, looking along the muddy alley which led past the house door.

‘That’s the toft belongs to Holy Rood altar there,’ he said, gesturing at the building they had just passed, ‘so this and the next one are the ones that concern us. This must be Clerk’s Land, where we have three houses and two workshops—’ He craned from the end of the alleyway, counting. ‘There are more buildings than that, we’d need a closer look. What do you think, Philip?’

‘There is a hammerman in this nearest shop,’ observed Maistre Pierre over Philip’s agreement. ‘Smallwares, I think,’ he added, listening to the metallic beating. ‘Perhaps a pewterer. And there is a lorimer yonder, to judge by the leather scraps on the midden.’

‘We can check that later,’ said Gil. ‘For now, I’d be well in favour of accepting this toft on John’s behalf, subject to closer inspection. Would you agree?’

‘Oh, certainly.’ His father-in-law braced himself. ‘Now do we visit this bawdy-house? They will be disappointed when they find we are not customers.’

‘It’s the paintings that interest me,’ said Philip, grinning. ‘Eckie told me more about them.’

The house fronting the street on the next toft was rather more impressive, a wooden-clad structure of three storeys whose doorframe and the beams of the overhanging upper floors were carved and painted with foliage and flowers. The street door bore an incised and brightly-coloured image of a mermaid, well-known symbol of sexual licence.

‘Well, that should attract the passing trade,’ said Gil, surveying this. ‘Was it done for the madam? Did she change the name of the house when she moved in here?’

‘I’ve no a notion,’ said Philip.

Gil rattled the ring up and down its twisted pin. The shutter nearest the door swung open and a maidservant in a headdress of good linen leaned out, gave them one swift assessing glance, and said,

‘We’re closed another hour or more, maisters.’

‘I’d like a word with your mistress on a matter of business,’ Gil said. The woman studied them again, and nodded.

‘Come away in. I’ll fetch the mistress down to ye.’ She drew her head back in and appeared shortly at the door. ‘Come up out the cold and be seated. Madam willny be long.’

She was a pudding-faced woman of forty or so, confident and discreet in her bearing, clad like an upper servant in a gown of good cloth with its skirts pinned up over a checked kirtle. She led them up a newel stair to a wide, brightly painted hall, set padded backstools for them by the warm hearth, and vanished up a further stair. There were footsteps overhead, and women’s quiet voices and laughter. Someone began tuning a lute. Gil, who had been in Long Mina’s establishment once or twice on legal business, recognized that this house was in a different category.

‘I fear we cannot afford their prices,’ said Maistre Pierre, echoing his thought. ‘They must ask enough to recover the cost of these walls.’

‘It was never a local man painted this,’ said Philip, turning about to stare. ‘It’s been someone that studied overseas, surely.’

‘In High Germany,’ said Maistre Pierre confidently. ‘I have seen a St Barbara from Cologne with just such waving gold hair.’ He went over to look closely at a lady clad in nothing but the hair, depicted in a niche of greenery in the company of an armed man. ‘Also that helm is German work.’

‘The colours certainly aren’t local,’ Gil said.

‘Well, now,’ said a husky voice behind them. ‘Three new guests, and I can see you all appreciate the arts. That’s a day to put a nock in the bedpost!’

The woman who came forward from the stair was tall, nearly as tall as Gil, and lean. She was richly gowned and jewelled, and her face was painted in a way the women of Glasgow did not use, the pale blue eyes darkly outlined and the strong mouth tinted a deep red which showed up sharply against her white skin. An elaborate headdress concealed her hair completely, but Gil found himself wondering if her brows were really that dark. Behind her the maidservant slipped past and down to the lower floor.

‘Good day, maisters all,’ she went on, curtsying, and looked from one to the other. ‘I’ve met none of you, but I think I can place you all three.
Je crois que vous êtes monsieur le maçon français
,’ she said to Maistre Pierre. ‘Which means you must be his good-son, I think, Maister Cunningham, and you,’ she paused, considering, ‘you’re no Sempill of Muirend, but you’re gey like him. Sempill of Knockmade.’

‘You’re well informed, madam,’ said Gil. ‘And you?’

‘Oh!’ She touched her chin with a lean forefinger and tipped her head sideways in a parody of coyness. ‘You can call me Madam Xanthe,’ she said after a moment. ‘Seat yourselves, maisters. Agrippina will bring us a refreshment, and you can tell me what fetches you here, for I can see it’s no a matter of the usual business of the house.’

Xanthe and Agrippina, forsooth, thought Gil. Maister Livingstone had heard right.

‘Does living in Glasgow agree with you?’ he asked in Latin. His father-in-law shot him a sharp glance; Madam Xanthe drew breath as if to answer, then tittered improbably and batted the question away with a long white hand.

‘Oh, you’ll ha to excuse me, maister! French I can manage, and I’ve a few words o High Dutch, but Latin’s beyond my skills.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I took it a lady like yoursel would read in the Classics. How do you like living in Glasgow, then?’

‘It makes a change.’ She turned as the same woman returned with a tray of glasses and a jug of wine. ‘Set it there, lass, and I’ll serve. Aye, a change,’ she continued as Agrippina withdrew quietly. ‘And yoursels, maisters? Does Glasgow agree wi you?’

‘Well enough, seeing I was born here,’ said Philip Sempill. ‘Where were you before you came here?’

‘Ah, where was any of us afore we came here?’ she responded, handing him a brimming glass. ‘That’s too deep for me and all.’ She handed wine to Maistre Pierre and to Gil, and sat back, raising her own glass. ‘Your good health, maisters. Now, what can a poor woman do for three burgesses of Glasgow? Is it about the counterfeit coin we had?’

‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘I took it it was Long Mina who’d had that. Tell me about it.’

She spread her free hand. ‘What’s to tell? Counting the takings the eve of Thomas Sunday, I recognized two false silver threepenny pieces, and took them to the Provost as my duty is.’

‘That’s more than most burgesses would do,’ observed Maistre Pierre. ‘It’s a loss of six silver pennies, after all, not to be accepted lightly.’

She tipped her head back, and looked sideways at him beneath the pleated gold gauze of her undercap.

‘This is a house of honest dealing,
maistre
. I’ll no give out false coin even in taxes. So once it’s in my hands it’s a loss any way, the Provost might as well have it. Besides, I hadny his acquaintance yet, the chance was no to be missed.’

‘You recognized them?’ Gil said. ‘How? What showed you they were false?’

‘No balls,’ she said, and tittered. ‘Four wee mullets about the cross, instead of two mullets and two balls. Oh no, I mind Eckie Livingstone called them pellets,’ she added reflectively, ‘and he ought to ken, wi his experience.’

‘What, is he that Livingstone?’ asked Gil in surprise. ‘I hadn’t realized. Alexander Livingstone was moneyer to James Third,’ he explained to his father-in-law. ‘It must be twenty year since, but I mind my father talking of him. If this is the same man I must get a word wi him about the process, we need to know what to look for, whether it’s like to be hidden in Glasgow. I’ve no idea what size of a workshop we’d be seeking.’

‘No hope, I suppose,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘that you would tell us where the false coin came from, madame?’

‘Never dream o’t,
maistre
!’ she said. ‘Mind you, if you were to attend here on an evening, you’d be one of the society, and could learn all sorts o secrets and mysteries.’

‘Is that right?’ said Gil, turning his glass in his hand. ‘Such as where you get this wine, madam? It’s uncommon good.’

‘Oh, some secrets are no for sharing!’

‘What do you mean by the society?’ asked Philip. ‘Are your customers all in a league, or something?’

‘That’s it exact,’ she agreed. ‘But we call them guests, maister. Once a man’s called here of an evening, taken part in our entertainment, which is music and singing and the like, whether he stays late or goes home to his own household, he’s a member of the society. You’d be surprised at some of the names I’ve got writ down,’ she added, then looked away, hand over her crimson mouth, in a play of realizing she had said too much.

‘And the false coin came from one or more of your – guests,’ said Gil, ‘rather than from the market.’

‘Two silver threepenny pieces? No from the market, sir, and I’ve had no dealings wi the merchant houses lately that would leave me wi coin to that value in my hand.’

Gil nodded, recognizing the slight stress on
houses
. It was possible she could be persuaded to give him more precise information, but not in front of two other people. He did not relish the thought of a more intimate conversation; something about Madam Xanthe repelled him, and it was nothing to do with her striking appearance and arch manner, which reminded him of a bawd-mistress he had encountered in Paris.

‘In fact,’ said Philip Sempill, ‘we’re no here about the false coin, though I’ve no doubt Maister Cunningham welcomes what you’ve tellt him.’ She looked sharply, briefly, at Gil then turned to face Philip, opening her eyes very wide. ‘I’m here to represent Mistress Magdalen Boyd, who I believe is your landlord.’

‘Mistress Boyd?’ she repeated. ‘Aye, she is, maister. What’s she at? I do trust she’s well?’

‘She has offered this toft and the next one to my foster-son,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘as severance, I suppose you might say, in recognition of the boy no longer being John Sempill’s heir.’

‘John Sempill? The new husband?’ The arch manner had vanished.

‘The same,’ agreed Gil.

‘Maybe you should explain it from the start,’ she said. ‘Who is the heir, then? What’s it about? If I’ve to pay over a heriot fee to a new superior, I’d as soon know why.’

Gil, with a glance at Philip, set out the history of the offer. Madam Xanthe listened without interrupting him, and finally nodded.

‘She’s within her rights, I suppose, if she wishes her own bairn to be the legitimate heir. And you’ll accept the offer?’

‘We have not yet decided,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We thought to inspect the property, to clarify the decision.’

‘Oh, I’d advise you to accept,’ she said, with a return to her former manner. ‘I pay a good rent,
maistre
, and it’s a handsome house; once we move on and it’s right fumigated you’ll find another tenant easy enough.’ That titter again. ‘You might even be able to leave the image on the door.’

‘Once you move on,’ Gil repeated. ‘So you don’t see staying in Glasgow, madam?’

‘Our Lady save us, no,’ she said. ‘We leave afore folks get bored.’

‘I do not think folk would so soon tire of you, mistress,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Oh, you’d be amazed,’ she responded, looking at him sideways. ‘You’d be amazed. So I suppose you’ll wish to view us, maisters? A wee tour of the fixed assets?’ She turned her head, not waiting for an answer, and called, ‘Agrippina! Send Cato to me. The laddie will show you about,’ she went on. ‘I’ll leave you wi him, for there’s matters to see to above stair. My lassies need to keep abreast of the news, you might say, and we open for business in an hour or so.’

Cato proved to be a gangling boy of sixteen or so, who emerged from the stair dragging on a velvet jerkin and grinning nervously. Madam Xanthe exclaimed in exasperation and rose, towering over the boy, her fur-lined brocade swinging, to cuff him briskly about the ear.

‘I’ve tellt you often enough, you fasten the jerkin out-by, you don’t come in here dressing yoursel!’ He rubbed the ear, looking sulky, and she went on, ‘Put yoursel straight, you’re trussed all awry, and then show these maisters about the outhouses and the kaleyard.’

‘All o them? And the wee pleasance and all?’ asked Cato. She sighed.

‘Aye, the wee pleasance and all, and the kitchen if Strephon allows it. All but the house.’ She turned to her guests again with a coy crimson smile, and curtsied. ‘If you’ll forgive me then, maisters. And I hope to see you all again some evening.’